A child -busy studying
- Being easily distracted
- Making “careless” mistakes
- Struggling to follow instructions carefully and completely
- Repeatedly losing things like toys, pencils, or anything you might need to complete a task
Psychiatrists have identified that problem with attention, is often coupled with signs of hyperactivity such as:
- Restlessness and fidgeting
- Dashing about in situations when the child as expected to sit still and be quiet
- Blurting out answers or interrupting others
- Getting really frustrated if you have to wait in line or queue
The symptomatic types of signs associated with attention deficit lead to frequent wrong diagnosis of ADHD. Parents, teachers and doctors have to be keenly alert to whether signs are demonstrated across a number of situations, e.g.in school, at home, during extracurricular activities or if they are isolated to a specific subject area, which may indicate a much more specific problem.
In order to gain a formal diagnosis, psychiatrists/doctors will be looking for evidence that the problems were demonstrated early in life (before the age of 7).
Once a psychiatrist /doctor has this evidence, a full assessment, which often includes lots of different specialists, can start. However, arriving at a formal diagnosis for ADHD can sometimes be a longwinded and frustrating process. Also, because poor concentration often affects progress at school, problems can be compounded with the passing of time.
Once diagnosed, treating a child with ADHD can present a difficult choice: whether or not to make use of medication. Other approaches include behavioral modification and management program.
Symptomatic highlights:
Attention
- Does your child struggle with attention and concentration?
- Balance and Coordination Reading and Writing
It could be dyspraxia or Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), a condition that affects around 1 in 30 of us. Boys are at least four times more likely to be affected than girls.
There seems to be some difficulty with the way the brain processes information – it affects planning of what you want to do and how you want to do it.
Often difficulties with coordination go hand-in hand with other issues, such as difficulty with reading, Attention and Organization Skills.
For children with coordination difficulties, actions like running, jumping, balancing and cycling can prove extremely challenging. For adults, this may have translated into difficulty with driving, household chores, cooking and even getting dressed.
The tell-tale signs can be spotted at two levels.
There may be problems with gross motor coordination skills, which may result in:
- Poor balance
- Difficulty learning to catch and throw
- Difficulty learning to ride a bicycle
- Difficulty climbing stairs
- Difficulty learning to get dressed
There may also be problems with fine motor coordination skills, including difficulty with:
- Delicate tasks like using cutlery
- Doing up buttons and zips
- Tying shoe laces or ties
- Handwriting
Often, as time goes on and children get more practice, things may become easier. In some cases, physiotherapy or occupational therapy may be appropriate.
Of all the skills we learn as children, reading and writing are among the most difficult and important. They help us build our knowledge and gain an understanding of the world.
As we get older, our ability to take in and produce written information is considered to be a fundamental skill required for success. So it is not surprising that if reading and writing prove to be difficult skills to learn, it can be a problem for the child, for their parents and for teachers at school.
For children with learning difficulties, learning to read can be an exhausting and frustrating task that simply doesn’t get any easier. In many instances, these difficulties continue into adulthood and the difficulty is hidden or avoided rather than overcome.
Lots of people take the act of reading for granted. For them it is acquired effortlessly and soon becomes second nature. But the processes involved are anything but simple! When we look at some text, a lot of physical, neurological and mental processes have to work together in order for us to make sense of what is on the page.
Our eyes have to track the text in a precise movement; nerves in our eyes take information to the brain; the brain does some special processing to convert that into language; and then that information has to be converted again into meanings.
With a process this complex, there are plenty of things that can (and do) go wrong for some people. It is not that those people are lazy or stupid. In fact they might be trying MUCH harder than other people, but it is simply that their ability to process the information, and make things become automatic, is not as efficient. Learning through practice is consequently much slower than it should be. When children are learning to read, there are a number of different signs that they might be Struggling . Signs include:
- Difficulty sounding out words and recognizing them out of context
- Confusion between letters and the sounds they represent
- Difficulty reading aloud
- Reading without expression
- Ignoring punctuation
- Comprehension difficulties
- Trouble remembering or summarizing what is read
Often people who have significant problems with reading and writing will be diagnosed with dyslexia. This is no reflection on intelligence or IQ (many are bright and creative people).
People tackle difficulties with reading and writing in a number of different ways. For many, the first option is more teaching around word sounds (phonological); for others it is sound-based or visual therapy. All these routes have their merits and their success stories.
- Do you or your child have trouble with movement and coordination?
- Do you or your child have trouble with reading and writing?
Many people, who have taken up the Special Mansik Pramarsh Programme, tell us that their ability to focus on the task in hand improves dramatically.
People who have struggled to run without tripping up, or have never been able to ride a bike, tell us that they are able to do these activities for the first time. For others, it is more about small improvements day after day, but the overall result is similar.
We have successfully worked with thousands of people who have symptoms associated with dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD. Those who have completed the Programme have reported outcomes which include:
- Improved Concentration,
- Better Coordination, Increased Self-Confidence,
- More Motivation for Reading and Schoolwork,
- Improvements in Reading and Spelling Scores,
- Enhanced Social Skills And Greater Sporting Ability
Mansik Pramarsh program deals with what some researchers believe may be the underlying cause of learning difficulties; poor cerebellar efficiency. Our program aims to stimulate the cerebellum to improve concentration, coordination, reading, writing and the processing of information, as well as make skills become more automatic.
Alka Mansik Pramarsh Foundation Clinical Psychologists-Family therapists Indore 0731-4263087,9179383554 